French fries, onion rings and other deep fried favourites are about to be doused at Halifax area hospitals.

Starting Monday, the Capital District Health Authority will no longer serve deep fried items at its hospital-run cafeterias. They will be replaced by healthier options, including baked chicken nuggets and baked potato wedges.

“We, as a health care organization, want to be a leader and set an example in our community,” CDHA spokesman Peter Graham said Thursday. “Part of that is to demonstrate positive and healthy behaviour around eating.”

Graham said they’ve been working on changing their retail food policy for more than two years, with an easy decision being “to remove deep fried foods from our menu.”

This decision should bring smiles to some hospital cardiologists, who have spoken publicly about the need to eliminate deep fried foods from these cafeterias.

As for patients and visitors who will be opposed, Graham said they “continue to have a choice of what they want to eat, just as we as an organization have the choice of what we want to offer.

“There’s nothing stopping individuals from going elsewhere to select foods that they want,” he said.